Following on from our breakfast event last week on ‘Workplace Conflict’, we produced a document to help people within organisations to identify early warning signs of conflict. Conflict comes in many forms. At one extreme it just erupts from a situation that nobody saw coming and on the other side it simmers away until a ‘last straw’ situation arises.
11 Early Warning Signs of Conflict
1. Body language. How peoples’ facial expressions of frustration and body language reveal how they are really feeling.
2. Behavioural changes. People withdrawing, not inputting or remaining silent when this is out of character.
3. Cliques developing.
4. Strange comments made. Comments that puzzle you until you finally catch on and then it all makes sense.
5. The words people choose. These become more and more emotive as the conflict deepens.
6. People taking sides or ganging up in the office, factory floor or in meetings.
7. Sickness levels start to creep up.
8. The discretionary input that people once showed disappears and people go home on the dot.
9. Negative feedback in staff surveys.
10. A lack of tolerance.
11. Complaints and disciplinary action starts to rise.
If you think you have identified any of the above signs in your organisation, ensuring that issues are tackled as soon as possible is paramount to problems being successfully resolved. Contact us to discuss your concerns and to find out what your organisation should be doing to reduce conflict in the workplace.
